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It is such a pleasure to host Carolyn Howard-Johnson. What’s so interesting about belonging to a wonderful group of authors, such as VBT, is getting to work along side them. But, you only get to know them a little better when you actually host them. I found out quite a bit about Carolyn Howard Johnson while preparing this post. Carolyn has held many enviable positions, she is an entrepreneur, savvy business woman, and multiple award winning author. But, that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Carolyn always demonstrates generosity and kindness even with her hectic schedule. She stretches herself and is not afraid to venture to be all that she can be – that’s very impressive and a wonderful example for others.

Now, let’s learn a bit more about this talented, and experienced author and promoter:

As a college freshman, Carolyn Howard-Johnson was the youngest person ever hired as a staff writer for the Salt Lake Tribune--"A Great Pulitzer Prize Winning Newspaper"-- where she wrote features for the society page and a column under the name of Debra Paige.

Later, in New York, she was an editorial assistant at Good Housekeeping Magazine. She also handled accounts for fashion publicist Eleanor Lambert who instituted the first Ten Best Dressed List, where she wrote releases for celebrity designers of the time including Pauline Trigere, Rudy Gernreich and Christian Dior. She was also a consultant for the Oak Park Press in the Chicago area.

Her nonfiction and humor have been seen in national magazines and her fiction and poetry appear regularly in anthologies and review journals. She has been a columnist for The Pasadena Star News and is now a columnist for Home Décor Buyer, a trade magazine, and Myshelf.com and others. She writes movie and theatre reviews for The Glendale News-Press.

She studied at the University of Utah, graduated from USC and has done postgraduate work in writing at UCLA. She also studied writing at Cambridge University, United Kingdom; Herzen University in St. Petersburg, Russia; and Charles University in Prague.

The author’s first novel, This Is The Place, and her book of creative nonfiction are award-winners. She also wrote a screenplay, The Killing Ground. Her book The Frugal Book Promoter: How to Do What Your Publisher Won't was named USA Book News' Best Professional Book of 2004 and won Book Publicists of southern California's Irwin award.

The second book in the HowToDoItFrugally series is The Frugal Editor: Put Your Best Book Forward to Avoid Humiliation and Ensure Success which also won a USA Book News Best Book nod. It is also the winner of Reader Views Literary Award and a finalist in the New Generation Indie Best Book Awards. Her marketing campaign for that book took top honors for marketing.

Howard-Johnson’s stories have appeared in anthologies like: Pass/Fail, edited by Rose A. O. Kleidon, PhD; Calliope’s Mousepad in review journals like California State University at Stanislaus's Penumbra and the Mochila Review.

She was honored as Woman of the Year in Arts and Entertainment Award by California Legislature members, Carol Liu, Dario Frommer and Jack Scott. She is the recipient of her community's Character and Ethics award for her work promoting tolerance. She was honored by her city's Character and Ethics committee for promoting tolerance with her writing and was named to Pasadena Weekly's list of 14 women of "San Gabriel Valley women who make life happen"

Born and raised in Utah, Howard-Johnson raised her own family in sunny Southern California.

Wow! What a list of honors, awards and credentials...Carolyn is quite a woman!

To learn more about Carolyn visit:

http://carolynhoward-johnson.com or

http://www.howtodoitfrugally.com

You can also check out Carolyn's blogs that focus on writing and related topics:

http://www.SharingWithWriters.blogspot.com
Sharing with Writers is a blog on all things publishing with an emphasis on book promotion. It was named to Writer's Digest 101 Best Website list.

http://TheNewBookReview.blogspot.com
The New Book Review is a great way for readers, authors, reviewers and publicists to get more mileage out of a great review. Guidelines for submitting (and recycling) good reviews are in the left column. Scroll down a bit. It's free.

http://www.SizzlingBookFairBooths.blogspot.com
This is a blog where participants in in my HowToDoItFrugally cooperative fair booths exchange ideas that make a ho-hum booth into a sizzling success. We keep it open so all authors can learn from our successes and mmmm...challenges.

http://www.TheFrugalEditor.blogspot.com
This is the Frugal, Smart and Tuned-In Editor blog. It covers everything that has anything to do with editing from grammar to formatting. The question and answer format encourages you to get the answers you need.

And, this blog is just a little off the subject of writing, but deals with an important aspect of life:

www.warpeacetolerance.blogspot.com
My creative writing is mostly inspired by the need for tolerance--nay, acceptance--on this planet. It also includes resources so that people can--no matter what they think of our wars--support our troops.

Please be sure to come back on Wednesday, June 3rd, for more with Carolyn Howard-Johnson.

Oh, Boy! It's so exciting! I'm hosting the award winning author and marketing guru, Carolyn Howard-Johnson.

We'll talk about how Carolyn started out and worked to achieve a great level of success. On Wednesday, June 3rd, I'll discuss two of Carolyn's books: The Frugal Editor, and The Frugal Promoter. I've read both so I have the inside scoop.

Be sure to stop by tomorrow and Wednesday, June 3rd.

See you in blog world,
Karen

I've always loved this little adage: What makes God laugh? Tell Him your plans!

I had a number of things planned for today, including a teleconference with my husband's disability attorney and preparing my blog for the June 1st VBT - Writers on the Move tour. Well, as life often does, things went awry.

I go to an extraordinary acupuncturist who helps control symptoms from Multiple Sclerosis, and this morning I had an appointment. After getting nineteen needles from head to toe, my husband and I go to our car to go home. Unfortunately, the car is completely dead. Okay, not a big deal, we call our auto club. And, here I'll mention the name of the club: BP Motor Club. So, we call at 11:40am and are told it will be about one hour and ten minutes. We wait.

Two hours go by. My husband calls the auto club. "Oh, he's stuck in traffic, it'll be another half hour or so." We wait.

Another hour passes. My husband calls again. "Oh, he's still stuck in traffic, it'll be another 15 minutes." We wait.

Now a half hour passes. Another phone call. More traffic, another 10 minutes.

I call 411 and they give us the number of a nearby towing service. I call and request a tow truck. This will cost us money, but we're both aggravated by now. They tell me that someone will call within a few minutes.

A half hour later, the first tow truck from BP shows up. While he's getting our car on the flat bed I get the call from the second towing company.

FOUR HOURS! Now, it's a little after 3:30pm and rush hour began. It takes 45 minutes of bumper to bumper traffic to get to the auto repair shop. One more half hour to finally get home. What a day.

But, the cup is always half full: I always bring reading material with me no matter where I'm going...well, because you never know. I read half of The Frugal Promoter while we were waiting for the tow truck! The rest of the time I listened to my husband rant and rave.

Now, what's on the agenda for tomorrow?

Karen